Honest question, why is jazz held in such high regard? Why is it regarded almost as sophisticated as classical music...

Honest question, why is jazz held in such high regard? Why is it regarded almost as sophisticated as classical music? It's not nearly as complex

Other urls found in this thread:

youtu.be/WzLBA5kCP1w
youtu.be/0WhXtkMyPHU
youtu.be/mb0EFwzXIEo
youtu.be/wAx2RRnQTR0
youtu.be/kXNnSRu7KKY
blogs.commons.georgetown.edu/engl-218-fall2010/files/Philosophy-of-New-Music0001.pdf
verlaine.pro.br/txt/adorno-on-jazz.pdf
youtube.com/watch?v=7MRo-sRmEUY
youtube.com/watch?v=GgJdj8G1IF4
u.arizona.edu/~gross/Slonimsky/Thesaurus.of.Scales.And.Melodic.Patterns.Nicolas.Slonimsky.pdf
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tritone_substitution
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coltrane_changes
youtu.be/HCG7RTblu1I
youtube.com/watch?v=OjONQNUU8Fg
twitter.com/SFWRedditImages

>complexity = sophistication

Learn more about music

You know what I mean.

Jazz has an image of being cool and sophisticated when it's on par with something like blues- meaning it's not bad just not all that in-depth either

I have, which is why I question this. When I was new to music I too thought hurr Durr jazz = sophistication. Look into it yourself.

Jazz serves a cultural function in the music scene. It is a signifier for musical "adulthood." To embrace jazz is to don a kind of graduation cap, signifying a broadening of tastes outside "mere" rock music. This ostentatious display of "sophistication" is an insult, and I find the graduation cappers transparent and tedious. Certainly there must be interesting music one could call "jazz." There must be. I've never heard it, but I grant that it is out there somewhere.

Jazz has a non-musical parallel: Christiania, the "free" zone in Copenhagen. In Christiania, like in jazz, there is no law. People are left to their own inventions to create and act as they see fit. In Jazz, the musicians are allowed to improvise over and beside structural elements that may themselves be extemporaneous. Sounds good, doesn't it? Freedom -- sounds good.

The reality is much bleaker. Christiania is a squalid, trashy string of alleys with rag-and-bone men selling drugs, tie-dye and wretched food. Granted Total Freedom, and this is what they've chosen to do with it, sell hash and lentil soup? Jazz is similar. The results are so far beneath the conception that there is no English word for the dissappointment one feels when forced to confront it. Granted Total Freedom, you've chosen to play II V I and blow a goddamn trill on the saxophone? Only by willfully ignoring its failings can one pretend to appreciate it as an idiom and don the cap.

I think if you ranked music by complexity then SOME jazz music would be pretty high up there. That's probably why.

I'm a classically trained musician. Jazz is objectively more complex than almost all music that people refer to as "classical". I can go into more detail if you don't believe me, but I kinda suspect this whole post is b8

Fuck off Steve

I laughed, genuinely good post

hahahaha nice post, if I cared enough I would turn this into a pasta

I would actually like to hear your input user.

Jazz is almost always more about the players than the composers. The enjoyment in jazz usually comes not from the complexity of the piece itself, but from the way that different players interpret the chords laid out for them and solo. It's a style of music that is difficult and complex in a much different way than classical is.

Assuming by "classical music" most people probably mean music between like 1650-1900 and people like Mozart and Beethoven and Bach, rather than later composers like Schoenberg or whatever, then classical music is actually much more structurally limited than jazz. Mozart has a lot of notes and instruments, and so consequently sounds fairly complicated, but really had to adhere to a lot of strict rules, so a lot of chord voicings and progressions were either entirely avoided or outright forbidden. There's a compelling argument to be made that beautiful music emerging from such tight constraints makes it even MORE amazing/beautiful, but I'm not tryna make a quality judgment here, just complexity. Assuming by jazz we mean music that doesn't sound like strict blues anymore, by artists like Davis and Coltrane, which is still fairly traditional, non-experimental jazz, there are vastly more chord progressions, voicings, structures, meters, and rhythms being used than were in the days of classical music. Sure, some jazz songs are incredibly simple, and some classical songs are incredibly complex (like early modern period, late romantic even), but if you were to break down the musical elements occuring moment by moment in Giant Steps verus The Marriage of Figaro, you'd find there's much more happening in the former.

I hope you're just a bullshitting high schooler because this is rym high school tier """""""knowledge""""""

Way to umbrella and dismiss different classical periods entirely, opinion = trashed

Jazz doesn't have the melodic nor arranged complexity of art music, but it more than makes up for that in two ways. The rhythms/its approach to percussion is in general far more varied than art music. The performers are very much emphasized, so while there aren't as many parts as an art music orchestration, there's a lot more happening per part. Art music is the proactive one that kinda sets the scene for things, jazz is the reactive one that sets up what happens due to how the scene went.

There's a helluva lot more going on in A Love Supreme than Sweet Home Chicago user.

And I'm saying this as someone who prefers blues to jazz. If anything jazz (at least the kinds of jazz I assume you're referring to) is more akin to progressive rock and music of that ilk.

I'm not gonna write a technical fucking discussion of the different eras of classical music because

1. If someone genuinely doesn't know much about it and is making uneducated statements about jazz v classical then me talking about the evolution of polyrhythm in the romantic era is gonna do jack shit for them and

2. Even if I did discuss that, the point that for the most part, jazz is more "complex" (as stupid and general as a term it may be) than classical, is a point of fact.

Hit me up when a 4 year old Chinese girl can play some Eric Dolphy any time.

So, OP bitched out?

I don't think you understand the complexities behind soloing, or even the choice in chords that a good tune utilizes. The vast harmonic, rhythmic, tonal, etc ways you can approach changes in jazz, and the way the greats consistently pushed the boundaries of this, distinguish jazz from other kinds of music. I wouldn't put classical above jazz in terms of "complexity", the two are just incomparable.

Western Art Music wins the complexity battle on a few fronts, but sophistication implies refinement. The nature of refinement in music is anything but a straight line, so that facet cannot be honestly judged.

Even if you were to look at refinement in music as an equation of time + energy spent in developing the genre, it'd be impossible to compare the two because so much more energy was likely spent in the few years surrounding jazz because of population growth and the novelty of the recording, which had a refractory power on both arts but probably much more on jazz, because it required less resources to thrive (little written music or extra practice time other than the sunk costs of the individual musicians). In addition, "classical" split into about a billion different individual directions in the 20th C., which makes it harder to tease out "refinement" as opposed to innovation, which is extremely different than refinement.

A much more refined genre would be North Indian Classical music, which used the same principles, while being innovated upon, for about 700 years.

Jazz is more about improvisation, it's just as complex as classical but in different ways.

Well pretty much anyone can play Ode to Joy on piano. Playing Cecil Taylor's Unit Structures might be a bit more difficult though.

>Coltrane
>non-experimental
I'm not sure you know that much about Coltrane, buddy

You are straight up retarded
Blues is extremely simple compared to a lot of jazz

What on earth are you referring to as jazz?

Harmonically and rhythmically jazz is far more complicated then classical. Just because so much of jazz is improvised doesn't mean it isn't complex or lacks substance. Things just take on different forms. Classical music is pretty obsessed with voice leading and if you look at transcriptions of Bird or Trane you can see the voice leading in their solos.

Jazz utilizes music theory quite a bit

This is bait

I know what you mean I really do, but I just find it funny how you worded this and this is probably something a lot of people might say.

When you say uses music theory, you make it sound like theory controls the music, but it's the other way around. Theory is just a summary of what people do. Doesn't matter what it is or how weird it is. If enough musicians do it for long enough, theory will figure out a way to explain it. I guarantee you if people started playing music standing on their heads in 1950, there would be dissertations on it.

>Harmonically and rhythmically jazz is far more complicated then classical
objectively wrong

Not that guy but could you expand on jazz in the style of Coltrane and Davis or say Mingus or Coleman is more complex than main name dropped "classical" composers like Bach, Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, etc?

I'm interested, like, I'd like you to go more technical, I wet to a conservatory a couple of years although still don't have that much knowledge but I'm kinda curious.

*tips fedora and tightens guitar strap belt

ITT: Actual retards thinking jazz is complicated than art music

Pro tip: jazzniggers can't even elaborate on how their genre is more complicated than classical without resorting to muh improv and vague elements such as muh happening and rhythm because trying to actually explain their reasoning would show a lot of retarded excuse or severe lack of knowledge on their part like, and

>it's not nearly as complex
false actually, it's much more complex on almost every level, sans maybe some serialism, and even then a lot of free and avant garde jazz is more complex.

Mate you don't get to defend jazz and make fun of others for wearing "fedoras".

Take a look in the mirror. You're the graduation capper he's talking about.

What does that even mean? You can get difficult to play shit from anywhere.

Playing the third movement of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, or Chopin's Heroic Polonaise is difficult.

How did my post convey that theory controls the music? I said the exact opposite

Bach and classical theory is literally taught in your first year of music school, most schools have an entirely separate program for jazz students that is only available after you're an upperclassman because it's much more complex.

Name a classical era piece that uses a diminished 11th.

>Playing the third movement of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, or Chopin's Heroic Polonaise is difficult.
As a classically trained pianist, I would much rather preform any beethoven or chopin piece than anything written by Art Tatum.

Let's actually look at some music theory and videos:
youtu.be/WzLBA5kCP1w
youtu.be/0WhXtkMyPHU
youtu.be/mb0EFwzXIEo
youtu.be/wAx2RRnQTR0
youtu.be/kXNnSRu7KKY
Watch these videos OP. They are concise and easy to understand even if you're a beginner or even if you don't play any instrument, which I think is the case.

I mean ill tell you why its harder. its because of 2 things first is scales dont work in jazz. they just dont chord changes and key changes are so fast and drastic by the time you start the scale you'll have missed your entire window to solo over where that scale works. 2nd relates into the first and its that when writing good jazz you're basis is gone. I mean you have a lot more freedom to write what you want. but unlike in classical you cant just take a c natural chord and aregiate it and make that a song(looking at you pacabell) thats why its a bitch to play.

Fair enough, I was pointing out the comparison, because the Ode to Joy is incredibly simple to play. In piano anyway.

I'm studying composition (only one piece so far) and piano myself, and I'm at that point where lack of technique fucks me up on my playing. I've been using Hanon, but it feels like it takes a while to get better with it. Anything else you can recommend or is it a case of daily grinding?

just practice for hours a day, or do what I did and quit music school and just make music on your own time.

That's what I'm doing.

I enjoy it a lot, and have a bunch of small melodies that I've written down, just waiting to become a full piece. Right now I'm having trouble with making what I finished sound as I want it to in Logic Pro X.

>If one attempts, as has been the case often enough, to consider the use value of jazz, its suitability as a mass commodity,
as a corrective to the bourgeois isolation of autonomous art, as something which is dialectically advanced, and to accept its use
value as a motive for the nullification (Aujhebung) of the object character (Dingcharakter) of musk, one succumbs to the latest form of Romanticism which, because of its anxiety in the face of the fatal characteristics of capitalism.
Jazz is a capitalist trash and Adorno was right about it, they have no theory, no substance nothing but the spectacle of false individualism so empty it leaves one hollow thinking that it has a "soul" it has nothing but the space to witch you project the "soul" yourself in it, but with in jazz there is nothing.

Here have these reads:
>philosophy of modern music
blogs.commons.georgetown.edu/engl-218-fall2010/files/Philosophy-of-New-Music0001.pdf
>adonro on jazz quotes

link:verlaine.pro.br/txt/adorno-on-jazz.pdf

stop watching anime and shit posting about animal collective for 45 minutes and go listen to this. i dont know if its sophisticated or complex but it is beautiful music that could only be made by someone who was incredibly dedicated to the idea of being a force for good and love in the world.

Jazz is just another kind of music. It does not stand for any of the ideals you guys are associating it with, it just came about in the United States from some pretty specific influences and although it started as a pretty repetitive offshoot of popular music like the blues or ragtime or stride or show tunes. And like most music, its not limited to just one of these styles throughout its development- it had a ton of different scenes and kinds that all varied in structure, the harmonies it used, the rhythms it used, the art music it was/wasn't influenced by, the level of freedom in the music, the complexity of the composing, all of that.

This is a retarded thread because everyone's just making too many assumptions about things. Some people are going to use jazz to convince themselves or try to convince others that they're cultured or intelligent, some people are going to enjoy it because they've been around it for a while or enjoy the music. Some jazz music is going to be harmonically complex and have a dense structure, some jazz music is going to just be a two minute blues song.

It's beyond retarded to attach such sweeping generalizations about the music and its listeners and its performers when the music spans an entire century and had so many different styles and scenes. Even more retarded is to bother comparing 'jazz as a whole' to 'classical music as a whole' like this thread does. You're directly comparing music that developed in completely different time periods, by people of completely different social and musical backgrounds, which we now know of from vastly different mediums.

>you'd find there's much more happening in the former
You will always find out that most ideas are not related to each other in any sensible way.
Creating good sounding musical ideas is easy, almost trivial, when you know how music works. Creating a meaningful and coherent structure, that's what hard.

>sophisticated as classical music? It's not nearly as complex
Why said that? He must be a colossal ignoramus and retard.
Jazz is the affirmative action of music

People hold all sorts of music in high regard. Taylor swift and Justin Beiber for example.

Regard is just someone's opinion, dont take it too seriously.

guyz....i made thred XD

this is wrong

It's literally not though, I went to music school, you learned early classical theory first thing.

When you say name a classical era that uses diminished 11, that does not mean it is more complex. Is there any jazz that uses counterpoint, retrograde inversions, leitmotif?

I can tell you know little of music

>counterpoint
Jazz isn't structured to be able to use counterpoint in the same way classical does as it's just strictly written music. Even then, counterpoint is THAT complex.
>retrograde inversions
I have not heard that term, you got me there.
>leitmotif
In the same exact way, no, but lots of modal jazz and post-bop take themes and rearrange and recreate them in many ways. You're not comparing them properly, you can't just directly compare written structured music to that which is mostly half structured and formed in charts. The complexity in jazz is not in terms of compositional functions (as that's just not really applicable), but in the very complex harmonies and chord interactions, as well as the obvious technical aspects (although I feel like technicality and complexity are completely unrelated, but others disagree). I'll give you that the use of more complex chords does not inherently make a piece more complex, but I can tell you that if you wrote down note for note a mid 60s Coltrane piece, it would be a lot harder to analyze than a mid career Mozart sonata.

*isn't

LOL classical music is the least complex. It's the only genre where you literally have to follow rules.

You have to assume a whole lot to come to such a shitty conclusion. Compare jazz to its contemporary classical and you're fucked.

b8

It's just old fucks in the jazz scene that have managed push their agenda on the rest of the world.

I'm probably a super basic listener by the standard's of some of u classical listeners, but to me jazz is about the feel and expression behind the instrument that *cannot* be notated. Perhaps the arrangements and melodies of classical pieces are more complex but the music of Albert Ayler, Dolphy and Coltrane is hard to explain in writing. I feel that classical music, as a whole, is limited to its structure - even later classical music like Schoenberg etc. Jazz, especially that of the 60s, is specific to its context and pretty fucking wild, but that will always be more interesting to me

Your first point doesnt mean squat. Changing keys is not that complex, especially when its just the same chord going up or down some intervals. Jazz is largely based on improvisation and because of this they have chord symbols on their measures to simplify their playing, while classical deals with roman numerals to show things like inversions, figured bass, degrees. You dont get this with jazz.

I dont really get your second point, but composers back then could modulate whatever they had to hell and back. I see the point of how jazz has more freedom and possibilities to create but its how you use those possibilities that make a complex work. I dont know WHY people here are failing to see this, maybe its neo-Sup Forums

> see the point of how jazz has more freedom and possibilities to create but its how you use those possibilities that make a complex work
Not him but I have to ask what jazz you listen to that you don't hear the kind of shit they do with those possibilities. Either that or you've simply never been in a jazz band.

as people are pointing out, blues is about the easiest genre you can play. (good) jazz playing takes lots of practice and theoretical knowledge.
this is beautiful

>counterpoint isnt that complex
Boy then where are all those contrapuntal jazz pieces ive missed out on? Shoulnt be THAT hard right?

Did you miss the whole
>Jazz isn't structured to be able to use counterpoint in the same way classical does as it's just strictly written music
You cannot structure counterpoint in jazz, it simply isn't the same kind of music. That's like complaining about the lack of poly-rhythms in hip-hop because african tribal music uses them.

speaking of which, where are the poly-rhythms in classical? Why are there so many basic time signatures, when plenty of spiritual and aphro-cuban/aphro based jazz uses them :^)

>being this new

Sorry, you triggered me thats all. Jazz could possibly have a few sections of countrpoint leading to other sections or improv segmnts, or maybe as an intro. Or create their own concepts of the rules for a song. There are possibilities they could take

Classical invented polyrhythms

>2015+2
>people STILL don't know that we have this bait thread every other day

meant 4u

>classical invented poly-rhythms
African tribes and Oceanic people's were using poly-rhythms before western culture even remotely existed lmao

>jazz playing takes lots of practice and theoretical knowledge.
most of the Jazz's musicians dont even know read partitures wtf are you talking about??

Coltrane practised 12 hours a day, even more when he was working on something

Oh ye

and? i dont care how much he practised
he still doesnt knew any of theory, no wonder why he play random shit "music"

loooool nice nice, not falling for it

ey yo hol up so you be sayin
*chucks spear*
wait wait wait wait nigga so u be sayin
*bangs goblet drum*
HOL UP HOL UP NIGGA
*draws cave painting*
SO YOU BE SAYIN DAT
*stones thief*
WHAT YOU BE SAYIN IS, NIGGA
*practiced voodoo*
NIGGA, YOU SAYIN DAT DAT DAT
*advances to the bronze age*
WE WUZ MUZICIANS N SHIIEETT????

Not an argument.
Just look into my eyes and tell me this not fucking random shit that any children playing with an instrument with autism and nobody in their right mind would ever gonna re listen to anyway
Its probably white guilty iguess
youtube.com/watch?v=7MRo-sRmEUY

youtube.com/watch?v=GgJdj8G1IF4

Best post so far ITT

I can only see one guy associated with autism here

Yeah thats pretty far out Coltrane, his last album recorded. But A Love Supreme, My Favorite Things, Giant Steps, Ascension, his work with Miles, Monk and Cannonball Adderley - thats gold.

u.arizona.edu/~gross/Slonimsky/Thesaurus.of.Scales.And.Melodic.Patterns.Nicolas.Slonimsky.pdf


en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tritone_substitution

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coltrane_changes


also jazz is about improv.

ITT: People who pretend to like orchestral music because they think it makes them look smarter VS people who pretend to like jazz because they think it makes them look smarter

>Not realizing that the ultimate in musical complexity is Bluegrass

Because most musicians I have come across, are either lumped into the rock umbrella or the classical umbrella.

They are either trained to play by ear, which usually just means basic soloing to simple chord progressions, pentatonic licks, or they literally just stare at sheet music and play. However it's very rare for someone to actually study music theory, know more advanced improvisational techniques and be able to break free from both sheet music and simple soloing. That's where jazz is. I have met people who are absolutely amazing at the piano, but take away the sheet music from them and they are essentially worthless. Then I have seen jazz musicians who don't have the technique that classical musicians have, it's all different areas of focus really.

This makes a lot of sense. I studied music for a while and it got unbearable when the classical students would cling to sheet music and had no genuine feel for their instrument. I saw girls cry and guys lose their shit over not getting the notes right. Then again, I come from that rock teaching that you speak of and I was very limited to the extent I could take my education, yeah I could improvise and had a bit of a feel, but chuck me in an orchestra/big band and I was like a spare tool. Jazz definitely covers that grey area inbetween; a combination of great discipline but feeling.

Composition is arrived at via improvisation and invention.

youtu.be/HCG7RTblu1I

>genuine feel
barf

youtube.com/watch?v=OjONQNUU8Fg

This is actually pretty great, not cringe at all.

Yep, everyone knows traditional is better than both.

I utilised your mom quite a bit
Does that imply your mom controls my utility of her

>the difference between popular and serious music can be grasped in more precise terms than those referring to musical levels such as "lowbrow and highbrow", "simple and complex", "naive and sophisticated". For example, the difference between the spheres cannot be adequately expressed in terms of complexity and simplicity. All works of the earlier Viennese classicism are, without exception, rhythmically simpler than stock arrangements of jazz. Melodically, the wide intervals of a good many hits such as "Deep Purple" or "Sunrise Serenade" are more difficult to follow per se than most melodies of, for example, Haydn, which consist mainly of circumscriptions of tonic triads and second steps. Harmonically, the supply of chords of the so-called classics is invariably more limited than that of any current Tin Pan Alley composer who draws from Debussy, Ravel, and even later sources. Standardization and non standardization are the key contrasting terms for the difference.

>in Beethoven and in good serious music in general — we are not concerned here with bad serious music which may be as rigid and mechanical as popular music — the detail virtually contains the whole and leads to the exposition of the whole, while, at the same time, it is produced out of the conception of the whole. In popular music the relationship is fortuitous. The detail has no bearing on a wholes, which appears as an extraneous framework. Thus, the whole is never altered by the individual event and therefore remains, as it were, aloof, imperturbable, and unnoticed throughout the piece. At the same time, the detail is mutilated by a device which it can never influence and alter, so that the detail remains inconsequential. A musical detail which is not permitted to develop becomes a caricature of its own potentialities.

legendary new pasta is born